Brexit and the ‘Anglosphere’
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| Author | Michael Kenny,Nick Pearce |
| DOI | 10.1177/2041905819854308 |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
JUNE 2019 • POLITICAL INSIGHT 7
The idea that the UK’s geo-political
and economic future lies not with
the European Union but with the
‘Anglosphere’ – the term given to the
group of like-minded Anglophone counties
who were once British colonies and dominions
– has moved from the outer fringes of British
politics into the limelight as a result of the
Brexit referendum. The belief that there is a
providential connection linking the UK with
Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United
States – all members of the powerful “Five Eyes’
intelligence alliance – gures prominently in
the rancorous political battle that has broken
out over how to implement Brexit in the last
two years. But what exactly is the Anglosphere?
What is its historical lineage, and why does it
continue to generate support in British politics?
And does it frame a viable account of the UK’s
place in the world, in economic and foreign
policy terms?
The Anglosphere lineage
For some Brexiteers, the Anglosphere depicts a
future that involves regaining an older heritage,
with Britain reimagined as an oceanic ‘world
island’, intimately connected with the liberal
market economies of the English-speaking
world. This, it is suggested, was set aside as a
result of the UK’s decision to join the European
Brexit and the
‘Anglosphere’
Brexit supporters often point to Anglophone countries as an obvious
replacement for the UK’s relationship with the European Union.
But where did this idea of an Anglosphere come from? And how
signifi cant is it? Michael Kenny and Nick Pearce explore.
Economic Community in the 1970s. This notion
appeals because it provides an attractive
reworking of older veins of argument about
the merits of free trade, the liberalisation of the
economy and the importance of parliamentary
sovereignty to the British political system. For
its critics, however, the Anglosphere concept
encapsulates the combination of hubris and
imperial nostalgia which some Remainers see
as integral to Brexit. And, partly because of
these associations, it has only recently been
given serious consideration by political analysts.
In our recent book on this subject,
Shadows
of Empire: the Anglosphere in British Politics
,
we take a di erent approach, suggesting
that the Anglosphere should be seen as the
latest manifestation of a much older strand
of thinking that was originally evoked in the
late Victorian idea of ‘Greater Britain’, and
which subsequently found embodiment in
the advocacy of tari reform and imperial
preference, before being reconceived as the
union of the English-speaking peoples in the
mid 20th century. This lineage then passed
into political loyalty to the Commonwealth
as Britain’s primary external a liation, which
gured prominently in the campaign to reverse
the UK’s decision to join the EEC in the 1975
Referendum, before being reinterpreted and
reinvented by Thatcherite Eurosceptics in
Political Insight May 2019.indd 7 08/05/2019 10:55
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